Carrie and I recently started watching old episodes of the sitcom How I Met Your Mother on Netflix. Neither of us had ever watched an episode of the show, even though it’s been running now for over seven years. In one of the episodes we just watched two of the characters, Barney and Marshall, enter into a slap bet. This is a bet whereby the outcome if you win is that you get to slap the other person in the face. And of course, if you lose, you’re the one who gets slapped in the face. This is all well and good, until they discover that Marshall has been slapped when he didn’t actually lose the bet. As repayment for this, Marshall offers Barney the choice of 10 slaps in the face immediately, or 5 slaps that can be dealt without warning at any point in the future. Stupidly – I believe – he chose the 5. Sure he’ll be slapped half as many times, but to never know when they’re going to come would be terrifying! If I had been in Barney’s shoes I would definitely have chosen the 10. I don’t like surprises. I like to know exactly when things are going to happen so that I have time to prepare. 

The reason I’m telling you about this ridiculous bet is that I feel like Carrie and I have entered into our own version of it. Let me explain. As I said in my last post, Carrie and I are expecting our first child this summer. The reason I was so vague with the arrival date is that we really don’t know when little Chaby is going to come. While this is the case for everyone expecting a baby, we are in a bit of a special situation. At our twenty-week ultrasound we discovered that Carrie has a rare uterine malformation that means it’s highly likely Chaby will come early and that he’ll have to be born by c-section. The high-risk obstetrician who came and talked to us at the ultrasound told us that he could come anytime between about 28 weeks and 40 weeks (full term), which isn’t exactly a small window! The news took us quite by surprise and threw us into a bit of a panic that we were not (and still are not) even close to being ready to bring him home. 

This news has brought with it all sorts of challenges over the past weeks. For one, Carrie’s beloved family doctor will no longer be able to deliver the baby since she is now considered a high-risk pregnancy. It meant we had to cancel plans for a two week road to California that we had both been very much looking forward to and that Carrie had to bump up her final day of work by about a month. Perhaps the most difficult thing though, is that we still don’t know if we‘ll be able to go back to Alberta for Carrie’s brother’s wedding at the beginning of July. All of our carefully thought out plans for the summer have been completely thrown up in the air, with nothing to do except wait. As I said at the beginning, I don’t love surprises. I like to know when things are going to happen so that I can prepare myself. I feel like I’m living on the wrong side of a slap bet. Knowing that this huge life transition is coming, but having no idea when it’s going to come. 

It’s now been about 10 weeks since we found out about Chaby’s uncertain arrival date, and I can’t say that things are any more certain. We’re nearly out of the water with the concerns that come with a super preemie, but we still have no idea when he’s going to make his grand entrance. What this period has been teaching us is that the only one who has control over this incredible little life that’s growing and changing in Carrie’s womb is God. He alone has knit this child together and He alone is able to sustain our son’s life.

I was recently leading a small group meeting for St. Peter’s on Psalm 62 and the line that kept leaping out at me was, “For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him.” This line has been playing over and over again in my head over these last weeks. What God has been teaching me is that above certainty, above firm deadlines and thorough preparation, I must seek Him. Not as a way of keeping my mind off of all of this, but as a way of putting first things first. While this hasn’t made Chaby’s arrival any more concrete, it has given us a bit of freedom to not be prepared; freedom to trust that all will happen in God’s perfect timing. We still have to wait, but we’re joined by the God who specializes in waiting; the God who specializes in patience and perseverance. And it is into His hands that we place all of our hopes and uncertainties.